tommy, thanks for that math link. That may be exactly what I've been looking for. I'm so bad at math, and I hate that - I'd love to start over learning math.

I have not read enough Dickens to evaluate this....

Charles Dickens 'gave characters a secret queer side'

Pip and Herbert from Great Expectations are among those who really have homosexual leanings, the study by Dr Holly Furneaux of Leicester University claimed.

Often Dickens' male characters "conveniently" fall in love with the sister of their best friend, which she read as further evidence that he had woven the suggestion of homosexual relationships into his plots.

I drive my kid to school, because the bus stops by our house at 6:50am, and school is 4 blocks away and starts at 7:45am. Casper isn't usually awake yet at 6:50am. And anyway, we all commute together in one car, and it's a sedan. Lots of people walk their kids to school, but they are mostly people with fairly flexible jobs (like, University Professor, Chef, In-House Counsel for REM), or jobs at start later than mine (8am).

Will you let Casper walk on her own at any point?

Charles Dickens 'gave characters a secret queer side'

Stephen Fry's first novel The Liar features a "lost" Dickens story with a gay plot line.

With the CTA cutbacks I'll be able to take the bus to get downtown, but I'll have to take the red line home. Evening on the red line in winter is often smelly. I'm not looking forward to it.

I'd like to - especially to get a group of kids to walk together from my end of the neighborhood. My target age for that is 8 - it's only 4 blocks but there's a 5-lane road to cross (with a crossing guard) and the turn in to the school is a bit dodgy, traffic-wise.

At least as big an issue as safety is actually getting to school on time, though - walking with her is 15 minutes, and she's not a morning person.

Yeah, I was just curious -- when I went to a neighborhood school, most kids walked, but now apparently at least many get dropped off. (My best friend always got a ride, but only to a block away -- they were lazy, so took the ride, but getting driven was Not Cool....)

My sister used to carpool to school and I used to bus it, back when we were going to the same school.

There was also a point where we were up for chauffeuring to school. I seem to recall she was okay with it and I opted for public transportation.

Often Dickens' male characters "conveniently" fall in love with the sister of their best friend, which she read as further evidence that he had woven the suggestion of homosexual relationships into his plots.

That's an extremely common occurrence in 19th century fiction, in part because women of some classes had so few socially acceptable ways to meet men. I hardly think that they're all veiled homosexual relations.